by Carol Berg
The hieroglyphs, certainly. Dared I tell him I had seen?
“My patterning allows me to detect when someone uses these spells I’ve taught them. If I’m alert and if I’ve the strength of mind, I can go in and—”
“You alter the spells!” Enlightenment flashed as clear as Dante’s fire. “You corrupt their work and then taunt them for their failures. It makes you necessary to their plan.” That’s what I had seen him doing two nights previous, altering a spell in subtle ways.
His head snapped around to stare. “How could you know that?”
“Logic.”
He strangled a retort and averted his face again. “If I can ensure that I work this culminating rite on the day the Aspirant chooses, I can ensure the worst does not happen. That’ll not be as simple as it sounds. The Aspirant is magically capable”—distaste heated his telling—“as long as he uses leeched blood to enhance his innate gifts. And he is highly intelligent. He keeps a close watch on what I teach him, matching it with what Diel Voile Aeterna—the index—leads him to expect. If he gets an inkling that I’ve been thwarting him, and decides he’s learned enough of what the books can teach to work the rite, he’ll dispense with me and attempt it on his own. I must take him down first.”
But my blood could open the books to the Aspirant. Did the Aspirant know that? “You still don’t know who he is.”
“No.” Dante returned so far as the lower steps and sat. Hard drops pelted his already sodden garments. He rubbed the back of his neck, tugging at the silver collar as if it chafed. “This is where matters get nastier, of course.”
“The Aspirant is not my father.”
“That conflicts, just a spit, with your testimony against him.” He glanced over his shoulder. I was close enough to make out the prominences and hollows of his face, the dark brows and unshaven chin against the paler skin, but no finer detail.
“On the same night I heard you for the first time, I heard my father’s voice in the aether. There was no mistake.”
“Does he share the tangle curse? Did he hear you speak back to him?” Never had I felt a mind snap up my words so quickly.
“I don’t think he heard me. And I’ve not heard him again. He’s your friends’ prisoner.”
“They’ve hiding places all over. Laboratoriums, dungeons. I’ve visited at least three besides Eltevire. But I’m not allowed to see their prisoners. I am their hireling—useful, but ultimately not of the same rank. Not to be trusted.” He leaned back on his elbows and turned his face up into the rain. “I need the book back, else everything is wasted. Your keeping it will get me dead, which will not grieve you, but it’ll not save anyone—not your father, not your king, not Duplais.”
Of course it would come back to the book. But I was not ready to join hands with my mother’s destroyer. “What do they plan for Duplais?”
“His death is to be a part of the rite, but as I’ve translated only pieces of it as yet, I don’t know which part. The index guides the whole working. Unfortunately it references a missing page of the Book of Greater Rites. The Aspirant gave Diel Schemata Magna into Orviene’s custody once, years ago, before I joined their little cadre. Orviene claimed he could translate it. When forced to give it back—because, of course, the banty rooster could not do what he said—a page was missing. We’ve spent a great deal of time trying to reconstruct the missing information from the other parts we know. That’s tricky. Dangerous. Knowing the power involved, I’d not like to think we’ll get it wrong . . . which may be only slightly better than getting it right.”
“What was on the page?” Surely he must detect my rising excitement. I’d never imagined Cecile’s fragment to be a part of Lianelle’s book . . . not merely complex, but encrypted.
“Diagrams. Maps, you might say. They would describe the arrangement of participants—the principal practitioner, which I intend to be me, and the assistants who will work supporting spells. Also the arrangement of the objects whose energies will shape the magic—persons, plants, animals, stones, or the like. Unlike the nonsense the Camarilla spews, the power for true enchantment does not come solely from the practitioner’s blood, but from the complex energies of nature, bound in physical reality and shaped by use and history and belief . . .”
For that one moment, I heard the voice of my friend of the mind . . . the teacher . . . the man who relished the properties of planets and night-blooming flowers, who reverenced magic. Dante. They were truly the same man.
“. . . and there might be other markings, describing the sequence of the work or aligning the layered spells to the particular location or . . . activities. This is a rite intended to rend the Veil between life and death. I’ve some ideas about what must be involved. Fundamental things. Powerful evocations of life and death.”
Like the death of a man who could not die. And necromancy . . .
I was torn between rushing off to incinerate the page and confessing I had it. “It’s never been found?”
“No. Whatever she did, whatever she said, your sister shook the Aspirant. He feels pressed for time, as if he’s seen a flaw in his scheme, and he’s pushed me to be ready much earlier than planned, whether or not we ever find the diagrams. He made the mistake of prodding Antonia about the missing page. She was convinced someone had got hold of it, as Orviene was always trying to impress people with his great magic. The crone took it upon herself to manage the situation, but she didn’t come up with it.”
Dante spoke of Cecile’s murder as little more than a lady’s pique. “Naturally you helped Antonia manage this situation.”
My disgust must have struck him square on. He shifted around on the step. The graying light revealed his face hard as hewn granite, instantly banishing any idea I might have of casual murder.
“And you are unsurprised to hear your mistress’s mother is a murderess. You associate with the woman every day, yet allow her to walk free unaccused, poisoning and manipulating your aristo lady. You are indeed an agente confide worthy of Portier’s mentoring.” His flint-hard eyes were the color of jade. “I did not do this murder. I’m kept back to deal with the larger magics. The Aspirant threatened to bleed the witch if she did something so stupid again. He insinuated he’d use her viscera in the very rite she thinks will give her Sabria to rule. He may do so yet. I’d not weep.”
Though I had no love for Antonia, I wouldn’t wish the Aspirant’s vengeance on anyone, even a traitorous, conniving murderess. “She conspired with a sorcerer to do the murder. If not you, then who? Jacard?”
“Jacard would piss himself if he smelled blood. Kajetan has more followers than just the mewling nephew. His mindless sheep from Seravain will do anything to further his holy mission.”
My head spun yet again. “Jacard is Kajetan’s nephew?”
“That’s why I couldn’t get shed of the incompetent little vermin until he threw his panic fit. Evidently you told him that I’d tortured your brother. He decided you knew everything and were ready to expose us. I thought Kajetan would strangle him for having you hauled to the Bastionne.”
He glanced around, as if he sensed the blaze in my gut. “I visited your brother one time only and left him useless to the Aspirant. I could not help the rest.”
“You’re despicable! He was innocent . . . a boy!”
“Pognole paid in kind for his crimes, which involved many prisoners besides your noble kinsman.” Disdain frosted the air. “Most such crimes involve other than aristo families. Yet after all, it was the noble king of Sabria who put his own goodson in the Spindle with no care for who watched out for him. Do not believe that because I’ve come to treat with you, because I have . . . opened . . . myself to you in ways I never—Do not imagine I believe the wrongs done your family somehow worse than those afflicting others in this world.”
I had heard Dante’s tragic story of his teacher. But I had also heard this argument before. Too often it served as an excuse for further cruelty. “Injustice to any person should breed a deeper determinatio
n to justice, not indifference.”
“Pssh.”
I’d heard that before, too. My father had called it the inarguable riposte, the tool of an empty-handed debater.
Water sluiced from the roof in a steady fall, reminiscent more of winter than autumn. The morning would not lighten much from this. The last bells had called out the change to the morning watch—sixth hour. I had only one hour to decide whether to reclaim my packet from Heurot.
It had been so easy to fall into this conversation, seduced by answers, craving hints of what I wanted to believe—that the person I had opened my soul to was no fiend, but an intelligent, brave, and immensely talented man caught up in a diabolical plot, a generous soul who could demonstrate that I was mistaken about the worst things he had done.
Dante was not that paragon. Nor was he misunderstood. My mother, my father, my brother, and likely others were bound in torment this hour because he would not risk his purpose by breaking his silence. Nor had he apologized, save in offering these grudging hints of the reasoning behind his deeds. That his work wore on him, savaged him, scarred him, was no absolution. He was what I saw, not what girlish imagining might invent.
But he had claimed, albeit reluctantly, that I might help him undo the Aspirant’s plan and save Duplais . . . and by implication Eugenie and Philippe and the myriad souls this chaos might consume. It was time we came to some resolution.
“Is Kajetan the Aspirant? Even Duplais suspects him.”
“No. Kajetan is worse.” Dante near spat the prefect’s name. “The Aspirant freely admits he wishes to do this because it amuses him. He says he finds the exercise stimulating. Kajetan pretends he is on a divine mission to protect the glories of magic. He spews fatherly affection for both gifted and ungifted, while using Portier . . . his student . . . his charge . . . his worshiper. When Portier took him on as his mentor, he gave Kajetan implicit consent for whatever he did, and then Kajetan gave him over to the Aspirant to do experiments on him. Gods, he came near getting Portier killed, revived him from the brink, then let him believe for nine years that he had slain his own father, whom he rightly despised, but nonetheless . . . That sort of thing bothers Portier. Then the holy prefect installs this mind block that destroys Portier’s ability to work magic. I tried to break it. Thought I had, but evidently not.”
He shrugged as if his failure were no matter, but his vehemence had already put the lie to that. It was not my place to reveal Duplais’ secret. And we had many important things yet to discuss.
“I don’t think the Aspirant’s motives are entirely whimsical,” I said. “A visitor was staying with Kajetan at Seravain when my sister died. . . .” I told him then about the man wearing Delourre colors and Duplais’ belief that the man had visited him frequently during his recovery.
By the time I had done, Dante was outside the summerhouse yet again, his unscarred thumb and forefingers squeezing his temples. Moments ticked away. Only with difficulty did I hold patience. Seventh hour was approaching.
“Gah!” He returned to the steps, shoving the dripping hair from his face with the back of his scarred hand. “Had you asked me straight out who was sharing Kajetan’s house when I arrived, I’d have said no one. Charlot, the vice chancellor, popped in and out; the toady does what Kajetan says with as little thought as possible. But when Kajetan sent for me to clean up their blunder, I was already halfway along the road, as I needed to do some reading in their vault, so I arrived a day earlier than expected. Until this moment, I’d forgotten that. And someone else was there. Damnation, why can I not remember?”
He ripped a broken lath from the latticework and launched it into the soggy garden. “I saw the devil without his mask, and he’s gone and cut it out of me.”
“Duplais sent an inquiry to a servant who worked at Seravain,” I said. “We might yet hear something of worth. And someone here at court must have Delourre connections. I could inquire. . . .” The prospect of something to do besides letting doom fall around me was exhilarating.
“Gods, no!” Dante’s refocused attention knocked me backward a step or two. “Do nothing that puts you at risk! Don’t you understand even yet? Your gift—You’ve truly no idea. The tangle curse is a predictor of talent for magic. I am very good at what I do—but the strength of your voice tells me you could be even better. Tonight when I realized it was you with all this raw talent, and I knew we had this connection that we could use, that no one could suspect—” He swung around abruptly. “Damn and blast, you’ve not told Portier about it—our conversations?”
Portier, who was destined to die in this wretched game. Who had not wanted to know my secrets, lest they be forced from him. My chest constricted. “I’ve not told anyone.”
He expelled a tight breath. “Good. If this plays out to the end, and I attempt to subvert their devilish rites and fail, I will have lost the biggest gamble this world has ever known. But together—if you allow me to draw on your power—we can snarl them in their own horrors and cast them all into the Souleater’s pit.”
Draw on my power? My gorge rose. “You think to bleed me?”
“No, no. As long as you’re close by, I believe it can be done through the aether . . . as if we were speaking. I’ll make up some reason I need you there—to bring the conspiracy full circle, to punish you for daring interfere, for exciting Jacard’s panic and disgrace and thus causing me more trouble and more work. I’ll throw a tantrum and sizzle their hair—”
“But the Aspirant knows my blood will unlock the book.”
“As it happens, he doesn’t. The sample I passed them—your blood taken in the Bastionne, so they believe—would not unlock the Mondragon ciphers.” His hand gripped the arched wood as if to tear the supports from under the summerhouse, yet he held his voice steady. “Maybe it needn’t come to this, but the time is ripe. The Aspirant is edgy. The king’s movements unsettle him. And, after everything, I—” He had to force it out. “I judge I am not enough to do this alone. So I must know. Will you work with me?”
Bathed in the searing green of his gaze, rational thought was impossible. I crossed the summerhouse to the eastern arch and let the damp morning cool my heated skin. Dante had immersed himself in lies. He had cooperated in loathsome acts. He admitted his own corruption, his fascination with wicked magic, his lack of moral scruple. All this could be a ploy to make naive Anne yield the Mondragon book, to induce me to walk calmly up the gallows steps so he could drop the noose about my neck.
But the tapestry of events had woven itself into a pattern, and not a single strand belied the story it told. I had felt the fire in my veins on Merona’s ridge. I lived in the mindstorm, and I knew the truth of my father’s blood. Dante said he wanted to stop what was to come and ensure it could not happen again, and had confessed he needed my help—the last ploy a proud, ruthless man would choose for deception. Beyond logic, reason, and caution, I believed him.
I retraced my steps across the summerhouse. Papa had once said that no matter the weather, he could never get warm on the night after a battle. Body, mind, and soul had been stretched to their limits, leaving nothing for the ordinary functions of life. I knew exactly what he meant. No matter how tightly I wrapped my shawl, I could not stop shivering.
Dante, drenched to the skin, awaited me on the steps.
“One more thing I should tell you about Duplais,” I said. “It’s possible Kajetan, at the least, believes him a Saint Reborn—unable to die until he consents to it. Legends of such strength often have roots in truth. You and I may even have touched on that topic in one of our . . . exchanges. That’s one reason they’ve chosen Mont Voilline for the rite. That is the place, yes?”
“Night’s daughters . . .” Dante said this almost prayerfully. A quiet, desperate prayer. “Yes. Voilline.”
“As for the book . . . I’ve some others need returning to the royal library,” I said. “You’ll recognize them. By ninth hour, I’ll have the Book of Greater Rites shelved beside Divine Harmonies and Discords of
the Air.”
“You’ll—? Well, good. That’s good.” It came out something less than his usual bluster. “It would be most excellent not to end up dead the next time the Aspirant summons me. I never know when that might be from one time to the next, and he always wants to see the book.”
“Then it’s as well I’m not planning to give you the missing page until—”
“You have it?” He sagged against the arch, weariness and astonishment escaping his control. “You?”
“Yes. But I’ll not give it until we meet again. Then I’ll prick my finger and we’ll read what the cursed book says. Together.” He was truly crazed if he thought I would go into this without knowing what I was getting into.
“No!” His relief vanished as quickly as it had come. “This is just as well. I mustn’t know the complete rite—the exact binding words, the keys, the focus—before the day. That’s how I hold him back. While our Aspirant is not the world’s most talented sorcerer, we cannot underestimate him, especially not now, hearing how he’s played games with Portier’s mind and mine. The Aspirant must not know; therefore I must not know. All the more reason to have you there.”
“All right. We keep you ignorant.” I was pleased we were speaking with voices, where intent could not flavor my agreement with untruth. My determination to read the cursed book was unchanged. Perhaps it was only my imagination that his head lifted in suspicion.
“Duplais believes you Fallen,” I said. “I heard it, clear as sunrise, whenever he spoke of you.”
